Livelihood resilience (LR) provides a crucial lens for examining how rural households adapt, recover, and transform under ecological fragility and socio-economic stress. Through a systematic literature review (SLR), this study synthesizes global LR research and identifies four major concerns: (1) insufficient attention to environmental chronic stressors; (2) lacking longitudinal and dynamic perspectives assessments; (3) limited exploration of cross-scale interactions across individual, household, community, and regional levels; and (4) the predominance of top-down evaluation frameworks. Addressing these gaps requires embedding chronic ecological pressures into LR assessments, adopting trajectory-based and dynamic approaches, analyzing cross-scale feedback mechanisms, and advancing participatory and co-designed evaluation frameworks. Furthermore, this study contextualizes LR research in the Karst mountainous areas (KMAs) of southwest China and proposes a framework that emphasizes four core priorities: the identification of chronic karst stressors for indicator optimization, the application of dynamic methods to trace livelihood trajectories, the analysis of cross-scale mechanisms linking regional governance to household resilience, and the development of participatory frameworks that integrate local knowledge. By linking global research gaps with region-specific applications, this study refines the theoretical and methodological foundations of LR and provides practical guidance for promoting sustainable livelihoods in fragile karst regions.